The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7177 p805-809
8 December 2001

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Government should take the lead on DTC, says Parliamentary group

The Department of Health should take the lead in starting discussions about how direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) might work in the United Kingdom, according to a report by the All-Party Pharmacy Group (APPG).

Following its recent meeting on DTC (PJ, 10 November, p670), the APPG has sent a report to Health Ministers. The main recommendation is that the Department should call together interested parties from the pharmaceutical industry, health care professions and patient groups to discuss how more information about medicines can be given to patients.

The APPG wants to see some sort of kitemarking approach so that clear, comprehensive and accurate information is available about medicines. It says that current arrangements, mainly patient information leaflets provided with prescribed medicines, "are insufficient and in some respects haphazard". The APPG is not in favour of unrestricted DTC.

Kitemarking should be the responsibility of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, the report says, because this would allow it to have an additional role in considering and approving other interventions beyond assessing on pharmaceuticals.

A research report on DTC compiled for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society says that the arguments for DTC can be summarised as providing patients with information they need and educating patients about their diseases. The case against it is that the purpose of DTC is to sell specific products and that this leads to inappropriate prescribing of "me-too" drugs.

"For the average UK patient, being prescribed a medicine is largely a passive experience," the report notes. Few UK patients pay for their medicines directly and most prescriptions are heavily subsidised by the National Health Service. While DTC is permitted in the US, many consumers "experience the escalating cost of prescription drugs indirectly, mainly through higher insurance premiums". However, the report notes that it is mainly the poor and underinsured who pay the full cost of their medicines and who, as a result, may have to go without medicines they need.

DTC works. The report highlights the case of Schering-Plough’s Claritin (loratadine), the most heavily advertised medicine in the US. The product has contributed 40 per cent of the company’s sales growth over the past three years. In 1999, the company spent $136m (£95m) advertising Claritin, 9 per cent of all DTC.

"If antihistamines are the hamburgers of advertised pharmaceuticals then Claritin is the Big Mac," the report says.

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